Chinese-American Relations in Comparative Perspective, 1900-1949

Citation:

Kirby, William C. "Chinese-American Relations in Comparative Perspective, 1900-1949." In Pacific Passage: The Study of American East-Asian Relations on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Warren Cohen and Akira Iriye, 163–190. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

This case tells the story of how Wang Minghui, Chairman of Yunnan Baiyao Group since 1999, transformed a single-product traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) state-owned enterprise (SOE) into a major diversified consumer health player in China's highly competitive fast-moving consumer goods market. The case also traces the development of the company from a private business to a SOE and then to a SOE under mixed state-private ownership.

The city of Wenzhou in the Province of Zhejiang, long known in China for entrepreneurship, now hosts the country’s largest privately owned mental health hospital group. This case traces the development of Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Co, Ltd. from founding to just before its initial public offering to illustrate the extraordinary entrepreneurship happening in China’s healthcare space. It highlights the challenges of China’s mental health sector and the means company founder Guan Weili employed to address some of them. How will the hospital grow in the future?